As other writers have opined, Australians tend to invade places like Phuket and since they don’t have to work the next day they get very drunk and very obnoxious. It is my humble opinion that the two most obnoxious drunks are the Scots and the Australians, and the two most obnoxious tourists are the Israelis and the Australians. At least Scots tend to behave themselves (up to a point) when travelling in Asia which can certainly not be said for Australians, who tend to utilise the words such as, “cobber”, “Sheila etc”., even though in real life you would never ever hear them saying such a thing.

Further to my comment earlier, that I wish the stupid cow had got a month in a Thai jail; still holds true, because I believe there are few things as focusing as being forced to eat Thai food when you don’t like it, and being forced to be around Thai people when you understand nothing of their culture, their language, their social norms or very much else.

I suppose it’s fair to say that I could equip an entire bar with beer mats if I had one dollar for every Australian tourist I met proudly Sawadeeing and waiing as they enter grubby little 20 baht knocking shops with a set plan to get thoroughly smashed before their night finishes, and do it with as little expense as possible. They are generally bad tippers, loud, overbearing, obnoxious and full of themselves.

What I found most humorous about this thread is the amount of input coming from places like Thailand, from people who have some experience of overseas living, but no experience of Crikey, doing their best to cover their expat arses, against the judgement of those of us who hold them in less than high regard.

It seems unfair to lump the Herald Sun into this piece. We actually reported in detail on May 20, splashed across pages four and five, claims that Annice Smoel had been rude to Thai police, had been drinking and had tried to flee. Further, Andrew Bolt today devoted many paragraphs to the issue of Australians behaving poorly abroad.

Regards,

John

Back on topic, it was interesting that, depsite the sensationalist headlines, in most blogs and their commenters, whether they were left or right leaning publications, agreed that she was an idiot - myself included. So many people do seem to leave their brains behind when they leave home.

Sure there are plenty of ugly Australians, just like there are ugly Kiwis, Canadians, Americans, Germans, Isrealis etc (not necessarily picking on those countries). But there are also millions of good, honest, respectful people visisting countries like Thailand year on year.

Keelty does owe them and big time, so his time is up. Hicks et al, along with dozens of others sold down the drain by the AFP, are of no interest to the mainstream media, since the average Australian hasn’t got the brains to ask what has been going on.

Since Howard killed investigative reporting, we get zero depth in news, and (in the main), because so many haven’t the brains or the inclination to ask, zero media interest in looking behind a 15 second sound byte on your favourite commercial news provider.

Media have zero interest in anything that takes brains and courage to cover, because that’s what the idiots (consumers) want.

For the punters- I reckon Keelty has been nurturing the police forces of the countries he has sold Australians out to, to garner their votes for him to lead Interpol. The challenge will be that the AFP and Keelty can’t investigate. They can only act on information provided.

From the first moment I heard about this I was watching thaivisa and listening to the moronic expats blathering away as if they hold the answers to all Thailand’s farang issues, I was asking what sher said to anger the cops.

It is important to note, the “undercover” cops were likely off-duty police waiting for their weekly pay packet from the owner of the bar, and happened to note part of what happened to the beer mat. After they asked her about it (perhaps accosted her is a better phrase), fully expecting a bonus to their weekly bonus, my view is she in all likelihood launched into them, and more particularly, had a go at their manhood. This would be enough to ensure an overnight in the lockup. If she hadn’t shut up, they would have found it difficult to get the forms etc together for her to sign and get her in front of a court.

All she had to do was shut up, pay them a thousand baht and all would have been forgotten with no paperwork involved.

The rubbish about food would be just that. There would be plenty of food, 3 times a day and access to coffee if she asked for it. Her issue was, in all likelihood, that she couldn’t get her head around a bag of soup, or rice, or both. The latter most likely.

portion edited by Crikey

“Ms Smoel said she would never go back to Thailand after her nightmare holiday.”

http://tinyurl.com/prn6ta

At least the Thais got something out of it as she is promising not to go back.